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The attached article appeared in the March 4th, 2007 edition of the Chapel Hill Herald.

cpr-editorial-ch-herald-3-4-07.pdf

From: Vicky Wilson, Assistant General Manager

Message body:
Many thanks to Bob Eaton and his team of Cassie and Rachel for their
excellent CPR/AED training at the SportsPlex on Tuesday, Oct 17. Their
feedback to each of of us was extremely helpful. Six of my staff said it
was the best CPR training they have ever had!

We are sending a donation to South Orange Rescue Squad as a way of saying
thank you.

Vicky Wilson
Assistant General Manager

Sent : Monday, October 30th 2006

The pictures that Fred Stipe took during the second day of the MCI drill have been posted. Go to the 53Maxwell space and click through SORS, and EMS or go directly to here.

The following article appeared in the DTH about the MCI drills that several members of SORS (Clint Osborn, Jordan Coates, Chris Dye, Cameron Lambert, and many others) put on for the DTCC EMT-B and EMT-I classes.

County gauges response efforts

By: Gray Caldwell, Assistant City Editor

Issue date: 11/15/06 Section: City

Media Credit: DTH/Keith Hodson Chapel Hill Fire Department and Orange County Emergency Management officials assess how they reacted to a staged large-scale disaster Tuesday.

Imagine you’re standing on a packed bus riding home from school one day. The driver is about to make a stop, when all of a sudden a school bus runs through the intersection and rams into the side of your bus. Both buses slam into the side of a building.

Everyone at the scene is screaming, several people were thrown from the buses, and there are a dozen life-threatening injuries. How should first responders react?

That was the dilemma EMT students from across Orange County trained for Tuesday night.

With help from volunteers, East Chapel Hill High School students and other EMT students who participated in the drill as victims, the EMTs-in-training got hands-on experience for the first time.

“At first it was intimidating when you have everyone screaming and blood on the floor,” said UNC junior Melanie Santos, an EMT student. “We’ve never done anything with real blood, only lesson scenarios for maybe five minutes.”

Santos said she was “pretty impressed” with how the students handled the stressful situation.

The event – which involved 27 victims, three ambulances, two fire trucks and a converted school bus – was staged to provide an example of a mass-casualty incident.

Durham Technical Community College EMT students, the South Orange Rescue Squad, Orange County Emergency Management and the Chapel Hill Fire Department all participated in the staged event.

Clint Osborn, who designed the drill, said such massive incidents aren’t as rare as one would think.

“We get to do this,” he said. “This isn’t totally out of the ordinary for us in the county.”

Osborn cited multiple-car pileups on the interstate and Franklin Street celebrations as similar scenarios.

“That’s essentially a scheduled mass-casualty incident,” he said. “You’ve got burn victims, alcohol overdoses …”

Tuesday was the second night the drill had been run, but some guidelines were added to help the students better execute it.

David Silfen, Orange County coordinator for Durham Tech, said learning structure during stressful events is important.

“It’s kind of like organized chaos,” he said. “The worst thing that could happen on a (mass-casualty incident) is everybody just running in and doing their own thing. Nothing gets done.”

Not everything went perfectly in the drill, and several of the victims ended up dying.

One of them was Michelle Gear, a sophomore East Chapel Hill drama student, who said putting on the makeup – a lot of blood made of corn syrup – was one of the most taxing parts of the night.

“I died of a head injury,” Gear said. “I think I was worst off of everyone except the pregnant girl.”

Silfen said that sadly, death is part of being an EMT, but events like Tuesday’s help students prepare for making tough decisions.

“EMS is really interesting,” he said. “You learn by making mistakes.”

The event gave Gear a newfound respect for emergency responders.

“I didn’t know how much work actually went into the EMTs, and I can appreciate it now,” she said.

All in all, Silfen said the night went by pretty successfully.

“The biggest problem tonight will be the cleanup.”

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.

DTH Article

http://firenews.net/

FEATURED SHOT
MON OCT 23
SUBMITTED BY DAVID HUNT, NEW HOPE FIRE DEPARTMENT
ORANGE COUNTY – Each Orange County volunteer fire and rescue department received recognition by the Orange County Commissioners at a board meeting last week.

Accepting the plaque for the respective departments (left to right): Chief Tommy Holmes – Orange Grove, Chief David O’Dell – Eno, Deputy Chief Brian Parker – New Hope, Chief Matthew Mauzy – South Orange Rescue, Chief Andy Gates – Caldwell, Chief Jeff Cabe – Orange Rural, Chief Frank Berry – Cedar Grove, Deputy Chief Nathan Huey – Orange County Rescue, Chief Mark Riggsbee – North Chatham.

http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/501950.html

Trainees hang around to save the day
Inventive scenario sets stage for class

Suspended from the side of the Mary Ellen Jones Building at UNC-Chapel Hill, Danny Willner, left, takes a turn playing the recalcitrant ‘victim’ for the drill, and Josh Neal ‘rescues’ him. Both belong to the South Orange Rescue Squad. Staff Photos by John Rottet

Jessica Rocha, Staff Writer

CHAPEL HILL – Say you’re a window washer who gets out on the side of an 11-story building only to find there are no windows to wash. And it’s raining. And cold. And a Sunday.While dangling from the side of the building, you might just think you’ve had enough — that the boss doesn’t pay enough for you to hang from buildings. You might just decide you weren’t budging from the side of that building.

That’s the scenario North Chatham Fire and Rescue Capt. Eddie Freeman came up with before rappelling off a building at UNC-Chapel Hill in a mock-rescue operation.

The practice rescue was part of a three-day high-angle rope training class, refreshing and teaching some of the technical rescue team of the South Orange Rescue Squad as well as two people from other departments. They practiced how to create a secure rope-and-pulley system from the top of a building. Such a system comes in handy to rescue people such as window washers or construction workers who might find themselves stuck in midair.

On the roof of the Mary Ellen Jones Building on Manning Drive, about 10 trainees built two rope systems. Each started with three metal rods tied together to create an A-frame built against the roof’s waist-high wall, but included ropes and fasteners to anchor the system, then rappelling ropes and belay ropes to help control a person’s descent.

Most members of the volunteer squad took turns practicing the different stations: One person rappels, one watches at the edge of the building, and someone is at the belay rope — which is the safety rope that catches and stops a person from falling. Other scenarios may require more people at other lines. For instance, if someone is lowered, then one person has to control the main line to control the descent.

Daniel Willner was one of the first to rappel down the building Sunday. The UNC-Chapel Hill biology major has been on the squad for a year, and this was his second training for rappelling.

“It’s not too bad,” he said. “I like the rain, though the ropes are a little heavier and slicker.”

Sunday’s practice was the first time rappelling over the side of a building for Erica Cabaleiro, an art history and biology major at UNC-CH.

“I think at summer camp I rappelled a rock,” she said.

For Freeman, playing the window washer in distress, his knight in shining armor was South Orange Rescue Squad Chief Matthew Mauzy.

After being lowered by other volunteers, Mauzy skipped horizontally against the building, first in one direction, then the other. Like a pendulum, he gained momentum until reaching Freeman. Once there, Mauzy attached Freeman to his pulley, and both were lowered by the rest of the team on the roof.

Staff writer Jessica Rocha can be reached at 919-932-2008 or jessica.rocha@newsobserver.com

For more pictures of the High Angle Rope Rescue training session taught by Jim Segerstrom of Special Rescue Servivces, go to our photo gallery.

We picked up 1262 from Mincey’s today and boy does it look good. Unfortunately it’s stay at the station this time was only brief enough for a few pictures. It’ll be back home next week.

Here’s one to wet your appetite:

More pictures are online here.

Thanks to Board of Director Fred Stipe for spearheading the press release we had media turnout on Sunday from three papers.
The following two links are to stories in the Chapel Hill Herald and the Chapel Hill News.
http://www.heraldsun.com/orange/10-760918.html

(Note: The original story above mistakenly credits us for the Kenan Stadium recovery. The actual recovery was performed by NCVFD Capt Skip Storey and CHFD Engineer Charlie Powell.)

http://www.chapelhillnews.com/front/story/2992339p-9419211c.html

Pictures from the weekend’s class are online here.

http://sors1201.wordpress.com/2006/08/02/orange-grove-fd-open-house/